As most of you know I am a proud Nintendo Ambassador. A job I love, mainly because it ups my cool factor with my kids. This week I was asked to join some of the other Ambassadors to meet with Nintendo execs to discuss ‘stuff’. Essentially a focus group with a fancy lunch and exclusive sneak peaks of the new Zelda Skyward Sword game. And we discussed Kirby as a cake pop extensively.
This summit of the tech minds was held at the W Hotel in Hollywood. (You may recall my rant post here). But this time, I brought along Jack-so that added an element of awesome for me. He took one look at the lobby and said “it’s like Austin Powers moved in and never left”. And he had no problem with the 12am room service for fruit and french fries. Nothing that causes more panic cuter than hearing your 13 yr old say “Yes, just charge it to the room.” $57 dollars later he was a happy boy.
But the best part of the day- was the night. We were invited to the exclusive symphony performance in honor of Zelda’s 25th Anniversary at the Pantages Theater. So we got dressed up. Took photos and found this sad but sweet note on the bar coaster. Which made me wonder what else hadn’t been cleaned in the room.
Here with @sugarjones and @babierabies, fellow Nintendo Ambassadors.
The Pantages Theater is breath-taking beautiful. But man o’man was it packed. You could not walk. We enjoyed an amazing, emotional and exciting performance by a 70-piece orchestra and a live choir, that played not only the favorites of the last quarter century, but also music from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, that included appearances by the game creators and music composers. The conductor was charming and A WOMAN (awesome) and walked us through the storylines and musical meanings behind many of the pieces. The music was well coordinated to the screen showing scenes from the game through out the years. The most disturbingly disappointing fact of the night was how these gamer people came dressed. Showering would have been a start. Do they not know they only add to the cliché when they show up looking like they don’t own an iron or heck- even a washing machine? But the enthusiasm in the theater was amazing. SUCH joy and happiness, it was a bit like attending a rock concert at times. I don’t think the is orchestra knew what hit them.
I was heartbroken after the performance when we struggled desperately to purchase a t-shirt or poster. Jack was devastated…but the estimated wait was 3 hours! At one point I helped a woman in a wheel chair who was stuck behind a massive crowd find an emergency exit. It was very poorly staffed and executed post show. Since we were way past our bedtime at this point- off we went to our hotel to dream about bird flights and finding Zelda.
Exciting info on the new Zelda game ‘Skyward Sword’ found here.